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When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
It is nobler to convert souls, than to conquer kingdoms.
It is nobler to convert souls, than to conquer kingdoms.
...the conviction persists - though history has shown it to be a hallucination - that all the questions that the read more
...the conviction persists - though history has shown it to be a hallucination - that all the questions that the human mind has asked are questions that can be answered in terms of the alternatives that the questions themselves present. But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment of questions together with both of the alternatives they assume - an abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and change of urgent interest. We do not solve them: we get over them. Old questions are solved by disappearing, evaporating, while new questions corresponding to the changed attitude of endeavor and preference take their place.
The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born read more
The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.
There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man read more
There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.
Anybody who is 25 or 30 years old has physical scars from all sorts of things, from tuberculosis to polio. read more
Anybody who is 25 or 30 years old has physical scars from all sorts of things, from tuberculosis to polio. It's the same with the mind.
The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the read more
The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.
No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.
No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.
We shall assume that what each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but by pictures made read more
We shall assume that what each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but by pictures made by himself or given to him. If his atlas tells him the world is flat he will not sail near what he believes to be the edge of our planet for fear of falling off. If his maps include a fountain of eternal youth, a Ponce de Leon will go off in quest of it. If someone digs up yellow dirt that looks like gold, he will for a time act exactly as if he has found gold. The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do. It does not determine what they will achieve. It determines their effort, their feelings, their hopes, not their accomplishments and results.
